


S5 EXTRA: the one with the kitchen sink

by dudski



Series: your hamlet of eight hundred people or less [4]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dudski/pseuds/dudski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We are <i>not</i> paying a plumber eight hundred dollars for something I could do myself.”</p><p>“Babe, you know I love you, and there’s nothing I don’t think you’re capable of, but you just told me you don’t remember how.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	S5 EXTRA: the one with the kitchen sink

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know what's going on here, and nobody wants to read a billion-word author's note, but the gist is that I couldn't stop thinking about Bones S5 and how that would look in the AU, so...think of this as a flash forward! At this point, Artemis and Wally have been together for about two years, and she's only recently been cleared for field work following surgery to remove a brain tumor.
> 
> Based on Bones 5x02, The Bond in the Boot, although some of the premise and most of the presumably ridiculous "life after a brain tumor" details come more generally from 5x01 through 5x07. I apologize to medical science, and also to plumbers.

It's sort of an unspoken balancing act. When Artemis came home from the hospital, she made him swear to tell her every single time she did something differently, and he did.

There were a few problems with that system, though, first and foremost being that Wally picks up on obscure details for a living. Then there's the fact that there's nothing he pays attention to so reflexively as he does Artemis. On top of all that, there are a thousand tiny things different about Artemis now, even though she's still herself in every way that matters.

She doesn't reach for her lucky arrow belt buckle in the mornings. She doesn't take sugar in her coffee anymore. She holds her phone to her right ear instead of her left. Her lowercase As are different. She doesn't fight him on it if he puts NPR on when she's driving.

She wanted all of that pointed out to her so she could get back to normal, but all it did was make her feel like she wasn't making any progress. For Wally, who sat in her hospital room in the world's least comfortable chair for what felt like an eternity, holding her hand while she slept and trying not to freak out that she'd never wake up, or that she'd wake up and not be herself, or that she'd wake up and not remember him, the changes didn't mean anything. For Artemis, who was itching to be cleared for field work again and felt uncomfortable in her own skin, every little thing she did differently felt like a failure.

After a month of that, they hit a point where it felt like they were always either arguing or avoiding each other, because Wally hated upsetting her but Artemis couldn't give up on fixing everything. So they reached a compromise. He points out the easy things - concrete changes she can make, little rituals she can perform to reassure herself that she's more herself every day. If Kaldur calls in the middle of the night to let them know someone found a body, Wally will make sure he places the green belt buckle on top of the dresser for her. When they're having breakfast, he reminds her to slice up a banana for her cereal. When she’s driving, he willingly puts on classic rock if she doesn't think to start an argument with him about how she needs a good soundtrack.

More often than not, if he stays later than her at the lab, he'll come home to find her asleep on his side of the bed, but he doesn't have the heart to say anything about that.

Smaller, more frequent things - the way she throws a punch, the way she leads with her left foot instead of her right when she goes up stairs - he doesn't tell her about. Those things he just tells Meg about. He feels a little uneasy about it, like he's going behind Artemis's back, but it's the compromise they agreed to, it's Meg's job to monitor her recovery, and if any of these little things turn out to be important, Meg will know.

Meg swears up and down to both of them that they have nothing to worry about, Artemis is back at work, and things between her and Wally are great again, so all things considered, he thinks they've handled everything okay.

Of course that's when the kitchen sink stops working and all hell breaks loose.

xx

“We are _not_ paying a plumber eight hundred dollars for something I could do myself,” Artemis grits out.

“Babe, you know I love you, and there’s nothing I don’t think you’re capable of, but you just told me you don’t remember how.”

“I got some technical materials to help refresh myself.”

“You ordered _Plumbing for Dummies_ from Amazon and searched YouTube for tutorials.”

“Wally, please,” she says, and he gets it, he really does, even if it’s a terrible idea.

“Fine,” he sighs, and she beams at him, the wide, bright smile that only makes its way out when they’re off the clock and away from the lab. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of seeing a smile that big and unguarded from someone who could kill him a thousand different ways if she weren’t so fond of him. “But I’m assisting. We might as well be idiots together.”

Artemis pecks him on the cheek. “You know you’re my favorite idiot.”

“And since I’m going above and beyond by actively assisting you in destroying our kitchen, I’m reserving the right to use plumbing innuendo as I see fit.”

“Nice try. You get two.”

“Seven.”

“Four.”

“Deal,” he says, making her shake on it. She rolls her eyes, but he already knows she loves him, it’s not like she can take it back.

“Thanks, babe,” she says. “And don’t worry, it’ll be fine. You might even learn a thing or two.”

“Hey, I think it’s been pretty well established that I already know plenty about working on your pipes.”

“Three more,” she reminds him before going back to reading up on plumbing.

Wally grins. Maybe this won’t be a complete disaster.

xx

It is absolutely a disaster, although maybe not a complete one. Honestly, Wally was a fan of how the whole thing started out, him and Artemis lying on their stomachs on the floor, propped up on their elbows and fully in each other’s space while she explained to him what all the pipes and valves under the sink actually did. And he definitely enjoyed the steady way she talked him through replacing the tee, how she’d put her hand over his while he held the joint together so the adhesive could dry, how she’d told him that his squint arms probably couldn’t apply the necessary pressure, then twisted awkwardly, still holding his hand and the pipe, to plant a kiss on his shoulder so he’d know she was joking.

The whole thing is nice. It feels domestic, like a normal Sunday morning, lying with Artemis on the kitchen floor, trying to fix the sink in the apartment they share. In their line of work, they don’t get nearly enough normal or domestic in their lives. He likes it. He likes it a lot.

It’s while he’s contemplating the appeal of long-term domestic bliss that the pipe bursts.

Artemis, who has been through years of terrifying-to-imagine training in “how to be a badass through all crises, big and small,” braves the spray to find the shutoff. Wally mainly focuses on not drowning in his own kitchen until suddenly, the spray stops, and Artemis slumps exhaustedly against his shoulder.

They sit like that in silence for a minute. They’re soaked, but everything else in the room is mostly unscathed. It sucks, really. The pipe that burst isn’t even one they were working on, so he doesn’t think it was anything they did wrong, but he knows what pulling this off meant to her. He casts around for a while, trying to think of something tactful and reassuring to say, but nothing comes to mind, so he figures to hell with it. Artemis wouldn’t be with him if she cared that he almost never knows what to say, and he’s still got one free innuendo left.

“I swear to god, baby, that’s _never_ happened to me before.”

Wally really, really loves her laugh.


End file.
